The first goal of teaching is to strengthen, deepen and
refine our intrinsic love of learning. All other goals
and all methods must stem from that idea. Any that do
not support that goal must at least be questioned and
adjusted, if not eliminated. Otherwise, we are not
teaching but training.

The first audience is the writer. Even when
revising for an additional audience, the writer is an
important factor because you should always be engaged with
the writing, clarifying and deepening the meanings for
yourself as you improve them for another
reader. But at times, thinking of yourself as
the audience can create roadblocks or inhibit new
thoughts, and the only audience students are really
familiar with is the teacher, which may well be the worst
possible audience. The only audience that may
be more harmful to the process is no audience or an
undefined, very general audience. A large, foggy
sense of audience helps produce weak, foggy writing with
broad statements and no substance.

Sometimes you'll need a
real audience to work with, someone to read the essay, or
someone to listen while you read the essay out
loud. Writing doesn't always fit the isolated,
hidden in the tower image. However, there are
even more times when you need a fairly specific but
imaginary audience to write for. How specific
will vary both from writer to writer and from time to
time. You'll need to practice to learn when to
use which audience. As with most aspects of
writing, if you pick the wrong audience at the wrong time,
all you have to do is pick another one and go back to
playing with ideas. All roads yield experience,
and even the time with the "wrong" audience will help make
better choices somewhere along the way.

A good piece of writing
should affect an audience beyond the teacher or your close
friends, but don't think too much about the bigger
audience, the ones around the edge. Think, instead, of the
target and the bullseye. As you write with an
audience in mind more often, you'll get better at focusing
both the audience and the writing more quickly, but start
by eliminating the fringe, defining the difference between
the target and the non-audience. In many
respects that first step is primarily to push aside the
teacher-as-audience. Sure, they'll still read
the paper and give you the grade, but thinking about that
as if it were the goal will get in the way of the thinking
and the writing, resulting in a weaker paper and lower
grade anyway.

Once you have an idea or a
draft that needs refinement, make some basic choices about
your target audience, keeping in mind that the easiest
audience to write for is people like you because you have
a better chance of understanding them. So
members of your target audience are probably students
close to your age and grade level. That will
define the enough for the time being. Your
subject, style, references, and vocabulary should match
your audience, even if that means explaining some of the
words to your teacher. One of my students had
to work her way back through two or three levels of slang
before I understood some of her word choice, but once she
got through to me, it was clearly the best choice.

Thinking of audience like
an archery target, the closer you get to the bullseye, the
more your audience should react as you hope. At
the outer circles, the majority of the audience should
find the writing clear and interesting, but there will
probably be only a small number who are actually
influenced by the writing. As you move toward the
center, the level of interest, agreement, and influence
should increase. Most of the bullseye audience
should reach the Wow level.

Beyond the target, some
people will care, some won't, some agree, some disagree.
Most are unlikely to finish the essay. Oh
well. Attempting to bring in too many people will
risk losing some of the target audience, so for the sake
of your writing, your audience, and your sanity, let the
people outside your focus go on their way. You'll
have more than enough to worry about when you discover
that your target audience isn't reacting as you intended,
and you have to figure out what to revise.

To refine the draft, refine
your sense of the bullseye audience. Close the
age gap if you can. Are they the same age as
you, a grade or two back about to go through what you've
just experienced, a year ahead and already needing
reminded what it was like to be a
freshman? Does it make a difference if your
reader is male or female? A topic such as
dating, or the difference between love and friendship,
could be successfully directed at one side or the other or
both. Decide, and ask yourself as many questions
about your audience as you can think of.

Your bullseye audience will probably bring to
mind a few faces of people you know, giving your audience
some substance. For additional revision (or
from the very first draft if it works for you), look to
those familiar, real faces. Of the people you
know, there's probably one who represents your bullseye
audience especially well, someone who would find the
subject interesting and valuable. Who would you
trust enough to speak with openly and honestly, to dare go
into the deeper ideas that usually only come out after
midnight?

Picture that person as you write,
thinking of them by name, maybe even write their name at
the top of the page, or write a draft as a letter if it
helps. Talk with the person as you write.
"Hey, Ralph, do you get the point here, or are you
wondering 'so what'?" If asking the question in
your head isn't enough, ask it out loud. Your
roommate may worry about your sanity, but once they see
the results in your writing, they'll start talking with
real-imaginary friends, too.

Writing for that audience
of one should help bring out more precise details and give
the writing extra personality and depth. On the
other hand, it may also bring out inside jokes and a level
of familiarity that doesn't work with the subject or for
the rest of the audience. Learn to play one
audience off another to find your
balance. After you talk with Ralph, ask "Hey,
stranger, do you get my point?" And it always
comes back to you. Does the writing really say
what you want it to say, or are you pulling punches
somewhere. Of all the audiences, you're the one
who should be most affected at some level because the
primary drive behind most writing isn't to be understood;
it's to understand.